Another Contender For the Land Speed Record

We've been following developments with the British-led Bloodhound SSC, a jet car aiming to hit 1,000 mph in 2011 and shatter the land speed record. Now reader Thea Chard writes in about a rival project from Washington state, one aiming at 800 mph before the end of 2010 — still plenty fast enough to break the record. "For the past 12 years Ed Shadle, 68, Keith Zanghi, 55, and their 44-man team have been racing to break the world land speed record with the North American Eagle, a converted 1957 F-104 Starfighter 'turbojet car.' Although the team is rushing to beat out their biggest contender, Bloodhound SSC from Great Britain, whose team leader holds the previous land speed record and has secured much more financial support for the project, Shadle and Zanghi hope to run the Eagle at around 800 mph later this year, breaking the sound barrier and setting a new world record for fastest land vehicle."

Comments

Feels like cheating

[the_other_chewey]

I still think that calling all those aircraft-that-just-don't-lift-off cars is cheating. Keeping them on
the ground is in itself quite a feat, I don't deny that at all - but to be called a car, they should be
propelled by their wheels' friction on the ground, not by jet engines and rockets.

I'm actually much more impressed by something like the Dieselmax, even if it is much slower.

Re:Feels like cheating

[sznupi]

...especially when contender is a modified jet fighter, not a vehicle built mostly from the ground up.

Re:Feels like cheating

[91degrees]

There is a record for wheel driven as well. There's room for both of these in the record books. And it's not like it's quite as simple as strapping a big thrust engine on the back of a roller skate so it's worth it as an exercise in engineering.

Re:Feels like cheating

[Malc]

And how is that different to say Formula 1? All the high speed cars have little to do with the real world where we have speed limits, imperfect road surfaces and require time to react to pedestrians as we come around blind corners.

Re:Feels like cheating

[somersault]

It's more fun watching fast cars navigate corners than watching fast cars go in a straight line. These cars are impressive, but not amazingly entertaining unless they crash. Actually I think the same of F1 when compared to stuff like Touring Cars, DTM and Rally Driving..

Re:Feels like cheating

[Skynyrd]

I agree with you. Strapping a set of wheels on a rocket motor is pointless, even though the technical challenges are probably fantastic. In fact, generally speaking, breaking a record just for the sake of being in the Guinness book of records is pointless.

So is playing baseball or watching a movie. Humans with extra time and money have hobbies. It could be anything from knitting to painting to riding bicycles to setting land speed records.

Setting land speed records isn't your hobby, but it doesn't actually mean that it's "pointless".

The real competition is the Aussies

[OzPeter]

When the story about the Brits was run I pointed out *then* that there were 3 groups trying to break the land speed record. The Yanks will be doomed to be "also ran's" as the real competition to the Brits is the Aussies with the 1000+mph "car" Aussie Invader

I'd plead for people to do *any* research on a story, but this is /. (and kdawson btw what is a "reaer", as mentioned in the summary. Is spell check too fucking hard now?)

Re:Tribute to a genius

[BJ_Covert_Action]

I wonder what it would take now, to do what he did.

A proper education for our young engineers and scientists.